Nine minutes. Mikhailis's pulse stuttered. He reached for the spectral silk the chubby Worker still held in tiny mandibles. "Fine thread," he murmured, letting the Worker drape it over his palm. Up close, the fiber glimmered translucent pink, edges shimmering like oil on water. A thousand gold pieces for a spool of this in the capital, he thought. And these little geniuses spin it over lunch.
He threaded the silk through the eye of a needle only seen properly in peripheral vision, then dipped its tip into a vial of quicksilver composite. The droplet clung like mercury dew. He plunged the needle into the capacitor's cracked crown, guiding the filament along the fracture.
The silk unfurled trailing sparks, each spark clinging to the crystal lattice and sealing it like frost closing over cracked ice. The red pulse cooled toward lavender. Rodion's chassis vented a long, relieved hiss.
